NetEase soft-launches WoW-like mobile MMORPG Crusaders of Light today

Soft-launching today on both the iOS and Android markets is a new mobile MMORPG from Netease dubbed Crusaders of Light. It was originally released as Land of Glory overseas last month (and was tremendously popular in China), but it’s gotten a name-change and a spruce-up for the western market. You’ll notice immediately that it seems to have an awful lot in common with vanilla World of Warcraft, from its stylized graphics to its 40-man PvE raiding endgame. It boasts 25×25 battlegrounds, small-scale ranked arenas, guild ladders, mounts, and loot out the wazoo too.

As I write this, it’s not yet up for download publicly on either platform for me in the US; it looks to be trickling out to Oceania first today, then Europe, Russia, Brazil, and North America in time for the official launch this summer. You can preregister on the official site, and yes it’s free-to-play with plenty of stuff to buy on the side.

Been playing for a week with Guildies in the Au server. If you Google it there are ways to join the Au server from other countries. We will reroll when us servers launch. Seems most of the folks I speak to are enjoying the game, A lot of players from mobile game Order&Chaos have made the switch.

It’s pushing a lot of pixels around. :) Battery consumption is higher than say snapchat, but the amount of optimization work the team has put in is incredible. Most mobile games I’m recharging every 3 to 4 hours, if I’m on a marathon grind. I haven’t tested it explicitly, but seems pretty consistent.

MASSIVELY OVERHEARD

“The Repopulation won’t be for everyone. But we want to ensure that the target audience (which is comprised largely of SWG refugees) is happy with the experience. Our focus when we set out was to create an old-school sandbox, and I think we’ve done that.”